


right behind me as before

by vulpesvortex



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Forced Closeting, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Movie Tag, Post-Film, Psychological Trauma, SPOILERS FOR ROGUE NATION
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:00:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between loading Lane into the back of the police truck and getting him to Hunley at the airport, Brandt figured out Benji got a bomb strapped to him.</p>
<p>(Will and Benji have some processing to do.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	right behind me as before

**Author's Note:**

> All I can say is: I guess I really needed to get this off my chest after seeing the movie four times? This is basically just 3k of mutual reassurance fluff with some whump and porniness thrown in, I really have no excuse beyond that I needed it to exist. I hope I'm not the only one, though.

Somewhere between loading Lane into the back of the police truck and getting him to the airport, Brandt figured out Benji got a bomb strapped to him.  
  
Benji’s coat was in the front seat of the truck, half-held in Benji’s lap. He’d taken it with him when he had dashed from the café, to get it away from the civilians. Carrying it around London had made him sweat almost as much as wearing it, the pit of his stomach dropping in a stab of dread every time he’d jostled it or banged the harness inside against something in his hurry to get to the rendezvous point. Will’s voice over the phone giving him directions had helped a little, though, and he couldn’t very well have dumped the thing on the sidewalk.  
  
He’d grabbed it from the table again when they left, because Benji Dunn was not the kind of guy to leave two pounds of semtex unattended, disarmed or no. So the coat was on the seat between him and Brandt, and they were stopped at a red light when Will picked it up and turned it inside out.  
  
“Benji _, what the hell?!_ ”  
  
He should’ve thrown the damn thing in the Thames.  
  
The timer on the front still said _DISARMED,_ so at least Will wouldn’t have to chew him out for bringing a live bomb into the car. Luther, at the wheel, went wide-eyed for a moment before throwing a dark look at the contraption. His jaw was tight as he returned his attention to the road.  
  
“I couldn’t very well leave it there,” Benji said, throat tight. He didn’t like seeing Will hold it. He’d have liked nothing more than to rip the blasted thing out of his hands and throw it out the window.  
  
“You didn’t say anything,” Will said, almost accusatory. His hands were wringing the lapels of the coat, fingers kneading. Benji repressed the urge to pry it from between his fingers.  
  
“There wasn’t time.”  
  
There hadn’t been, what with the box not being finished yet and Ethan on the way already. When he’d shown up, Luther had handed him a drill and a gasline and told him to, “Step to it, Benji. We ain’t got all day," with grim amusement, and there hadn’t been time to do anything like reach for Will and make him hold him until his hands stopped shaking. It had been a good thing too, probably, since Benji was pretty sure he would’ve burst into tears the moment Will put his arms around him.  
  
Except now Will was holding the bomb and looking horror-struck, and Benji didn’t know anything to say that wouldn’t be accompanied by a vigorous disposal of his stomach contents into the truck’s foot well.  
  
Will must’ve been able to read his queasy expression, because his face softened, and he put the coat down carefully between their feet. One of his hands found its way to the back of Benji’s neck, sliding into his hair, and Brandt tipped his face against him, pressing a kiss into Benji’s throat. Benji heard Luther make a surprised noise across the seat, but thankfully no comment came.  
  
“It’s alright,” Will’s rough voice said against his throat, and Benji felt something settle within himself, some small part of the roiling mess of terror and residual adrenaline in his stomach that curled up in its corner and went to sleep.  
  
Benji gave him a shaky smile and squeezed his thigh. “Yeah, we’re gonna be alright.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
They delivered Lane into Hunley’s waiting arms ten minutes later. His face was a picture when they unloaded their plexiglas contraption from the truck, Lane’s limp body thudding comically against the side as it was tilted out. Benji shoved the vest at one of the techs and went to stand with the others while Ethan had a standoff with Hunley about Ilsa. Hunley was of the opinion she needed to be debriefed and testify against Atlee, and Ethan told him very firmly she was in the wind.    
  
Hunley wasn’t pleased, but eventually he let it go. He motioned to the jet. “You guys need a ride?”  
  
“With all due respect, I’ve had enough of the CIA for a while,” Ethan grunted.  
  
“If there’s no urgent need to get back stateside, I’d rather get some sleep,” Brandt said drily. “I believe London has hotels?”  
  
“I’m not coming in to work tomorrow,” Benji supplied, more to the others than to Hunley. “Barring another bloody international crisis, don’t bother calling me in for, like, a week.”  
  
Hunley made a thoughtful noise. “Hmm, yes. Perhaps it would be best if you kept out of the way until we can get things …sorted, at home.”  
  
Brandt snorted derisively. “Yeah, you go ‘sort’.”  
  
  
\----  
  
  
The team split up at the airport with the promise to call each other tomorrow. Benji collected hugs from Ethan and Luther and watched them get into their cabs, Brandt’s fingers warm where they were curled around his wrist. The cab driver took them to a hotel in Kensington- Benji had stayed there before - where the heavy-eyed night clerk barely looked up from the television as she signed them into a room.  
  
The room was old-fashioned in that typical English hotel way, 1950s-style carpets and a rickety desk in the corner, a small two-person bed, a tiny bathroom with brown tiles and new fittings. Benji couldn’t care less about the state of their accommodations. The important thing was there was a bed, which he needed _right now_ , and a shower, which he figured he’d want in the morning. He didn't really need anything more, except maybe some trauma counselling or another hug.  
  
"Benji?" Will said, tugging on his wrist, and Benji only hesitated a moment before he let himself slump into Will's arms.  
  
As predicted, the tears didn’t take long to come. The past few days had been rough. He hadn’t lied when he told Ethan he knew the risks, and was willing to endure them. One of the things he'd accepted was he didn't know when - if - he'd be seeing Will again if things went wrong. Then he got kidnapped, and the bomb, and he'd heard a little of what the others had had to do.... The months before hadn’t exactly been a cakewalk either, with Ethan on the run, Hunley breathing down their necks, and Will stuck playing diplomat to preserve what was left of the IMF. It was all a little much, stacked on top of each other like that.  
  
"Will," Benji said, just to say it, just to hear Will say his name back, fingers clenching tight in the back of his shirt.  
  
Will was smiling, sort of, through the tears, and he put his hands on Benji's jaw with gentle care and kissed him like there hadn’t been time to in Morocco, like there wasn’t after Lane. Benji heard himself make a pained, needy noise and clung. Somehow the bed ended up beneath him, Will sitting across his legs.  
  
"We got you back," Will said, a little wondering, a lot relieved, and Benji had to smile at that, because, yeah, Will was a worst-case-scenario kind of guy. Benji guessed if he were the one running the numbers on their missions, he'd be too.  
  
"Yeah." Benji tried not to think about the 0:0:19 left on the timer, not sure if he should tell Will. They always cut things close, but, like he'd told Ethan, this time they'd taken it a little too far. “It was...It was pretty close.”  
  
Wiil’s rough thumb was stroking his jaw. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”  
  
Benji turned his head, kissed Will’s wrist. “I know. I’m sorry you had to betray us. Pretend to, I mean.”  
  
Will shrugged. “Hunley can believe what he likes of me.”  
  
“Things might still be difficult when we get back.”  
  
“Or they might get better,” Will said, leaning down for a kiss.  
  
Benji raised an eyebrow. “Optimism from Agent William Brandt? This is a first, hand me my phone so I can mark my calendar,” he joked.  
  
“Hmmm,” Will leaned down to kiss him again, giving a little roll of his hips. Said “I’m feeling pretty lucky right now," with heartfelt insistence.  
  
Benji let out a groan threaded with laughter. He thought of one-fifth of a second and had to agree.  
  
He hooked an elbow around Will’s neck and dragged him into a kiss, hot and open-mouthed. Will moaned against his tongue, his whole body pressing down needily. “It was so close, Will, you don’t even know."  
  
“You’re here.” Will pressed the words into his throat, his wet lips leaving an erotic damp streak on Benji’s skin. Benji felt his hands tighten convulsively on Will’s hips, which gave another roll. They both moaned, laughed a little when Benji's had a hint of a squeak in it.  
  
When Will pulled back, the mood was lighter, and Benji was smiling again. Benji nuzzled him, grateful for Will’s adorable bumpy nose, the little mole on his neck, all the wonderful details of him, grateful for the way Benji felt suffused with love for him. “You're here too.”  
  
"Yeah..." Will breathed, trailing off, kissing his throat, and suddenly Benji felt too hot, too urgent, desire hitting him like a back-up system coming online.  
  
Normally, Benji would have taken a moment to appreciate Will in his bespoke waistcoat and rolled-up sleeves, undressed him slowly, but right now he didn’t want anything but to feel Will’s skin against his as soon as he could get it. Will must’ve seen it on his face, because he didn’t even say anything when Benji tore a button on his dress shirt or chucked the whole tangled mess against the wall.  
  
"You too," Will said, but he leaned down to kiss Benji before he could do anything about it, grabby hands pulling ineffectively at his shirts. Benji pressed back, tongue stroking along Will's, hand stroking down his neck and naked back, the familiar curve of Will's shoulder blades. Will's body rolled down into him, their belt buckles catching on each other somewhat painfully, and Will let out a frustrated groan and pulled himself upwards again.  
  
"Shirts, why do you wear so many shirts?"  
  
Benji swatted Will's hands away from his lapels, laughing. "There's only two! It's not rocket science. Here, I'll show you a neat trick." He undid his belt first - since the buckle debacle really didn't need to be repeated - then grabbed the bottom edge of his t-shirt and pulled it and the open button-down off in one go.  
  
"See? Magic," Benji said, lifting a mocking eyebrow at Will, who rolled his eyes and dropped down onto his elbows to kiss the smirk off his face.  
  
Will's back was smooth under his hands, the dips of his spine, the curving lines of his musculature. His hands dipped down the back of Will's dress pants.  
  
He had their trousers halfway down their thighs before he realized Will had gone still on top of him. Will was staring at his chest. Benji looked down, saw Will's hand covering a dark purple bruise on his side - a kidney punch from when he'd resisted Lane's men putting the bomb harness on him, layered over Vinter's efforts when they'd kidnapped him. It wasn't the only one. There were red lines across his shoulders where the harness had cut in, and another bruise from the seat belt in the BMW. His back and arms were still sore from the crash, and his knee was blue where he'd banged it into the dashboard as they flipped over.  
  
Benji arched, touched and frustrated and horny. "Will..."  
  
Will's eyes snapped to his.  
  
"Hey," he lifted a gentle hand to Will's cheek, "all in a day's work, right?"  
  
"Not really," Will said, and it had the weight of the past few months behind it, running HQ while the team went on missions, watching their close calls on monitors in the computer bay, Will's urgent voice on the comms tying them together.  
  
Benji wasn't going to let the mood collapse now, though. "Eh, three days work, tops." He waved a dismissive hand, shrugging.  
  
Will didn't really think that was funny - Benji saw him bite something back - but a little of the haunted look went out of his eyes.  
  
"Yeah?" Benji asked softly, checking in, and Will nodded, put his face against Benji's neck. Benji put his arms around him and rolled them over.  
  
When he lifted up, Will's eyes were wide and dark, and Benji let out a laugh. "Yeah, I can move too, or did you forget?"  
  
Will's chin lifted defiantly, and he might've said something scathing and sarcastic in return, but Benji was too distracted to really hear him, because, jesus christ, Will was under him, hair mussed, dark-eyed, and with his dress pants still caught halfway down his thighs. Will saw, smirked at him and stretched, and just like that they were back on track.  
  
Will's hands caught the back pockets of Benji's purple jeans and started pulling down.  
  
"Jesus, Will," Benji breathed roughly. Holding himself up made the soreness in his arms flare up, but who gave a crap? Clearly details like that were insignificant when you had William Brandt lying naked under you.  
  
"Come on then," Will said, smirking like a son of a bitch, and Benji felt another wave of heat roll over him. He started his revenge by kissing Will roughly, one hand in Will's hair, the other sliding his own jeans down and kicking them off. There was a brief moment of awkwardness trying to get Will’s pants off with Benji sitting between his legs, but Benji hardly noticed because Will’s mouth kept trying to kiss him the entire time, and mostly succeeded.  
  
The kiss was a mess, Will’s hands grabbing onto his hair, his beard scraping roughly against Will’s jaw, wet breaths panting between them. Will was going to have beard burn, and Benji’s stomach swooped when he realized it didn’t matter, they weren’t seeing anyone tomorrow who didn’t already know.  
  
“Come on, come on, come on,” Will moaned, dragging Benji down on top of himself again after disposing of their pants off the side of the bed, grabbing him with his legs.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Benji said, breathlessly, a hand going to the small of Will’s back, and pulled him closer. “God.”  
  
Will's thighs ended back splayed on either side of his hips again, and Benji dearly wanted to fuck him, but they didn't have any stuff and damned if he was getting up to get the fucking shower gel or something. They ended up just rubbing off together, one hand between them, no finesse, their kisses devolving into wild urgency. It was almost as good, really: the way Will’s hips met his, the familiar rhythm, their hot shared breaths, the taut stretch of Will’s neck as he threw his head back and came.  
    


\----  
  
  
Afterwards, they lay together in the quiet darkness.  
  
Benji rolled closer, pressing his face against Will's bare shoulder, basking in tonight’s unexpected reprieve. It'd been hard, these past few months, to be careful. The CIA wasn't big on fraternisation, not like in the IMF where everything at and under team-level was at the team leader’s discretion. Benji was grateful nothing ever got logged about it in the IMF; for all the interrogations, Hunley never asked about this.  
  
“Do you think they’ll reinstate the IMF?” he wondered out loud.  
  
Will opened his eyes, looking at him. His hand fumbled down, lightly curled around Benji’s between their bodies. "Maybe. We've got some pretty spectacular leverage right now."  
  
"Mmm," Benji hummed. "Maybe they'll make you secretary.”  
  
"God, no. I've had enough of politics."  
  
"I don't know, you've done alright. And you care about the organization, the agents. I think you'd be good."  
  
Will made a noncommittal sound. "I'd rather go back to the field."  
  
"You'd get to boss Ethan around. Veto his crazy plans," Benji said enticingly.  
  
Will put his arm around him, pushing down the bed a little so he could look Benji in the eyes. "Sometimes we sorta need Ethan's crazy plans."  
  
Benji swallowed. "Yeah."  
  
"Also, as you know, vetoing Ethan's plans has no effect whatsoever."  
  
"Ha, no."  
  
"We'll see what we can do about getting the IMF back online. Hunley seems ...receptive."  
  
"Mm-hm." Benji snuggled deeper into Will’s shoulder.  
  
Brandt smiled. "Are you falling asleep?"  
  
"Mmmh, yes. That is a def-" Benji yawned expansively, "- a definite yes. On me. And the sleeping." Benji waved a hand vaguely; Brandt caught it and held it against his chest.  
  
They shifted, settling in for sleep, Benji tucking one of his legs over Will’s, Will tugging one of the pillows underneath both their heads. Benji’s eyes were sliding closed when he remembered something.  
  
“Oh!”  
  
“Hmm?” Will inquired sleepily.  
  
“Wanna know why I picked this hotel?”  
  
“Hm-mmm.”  
  
Benji leaned in conspiratorially. “The Science Museum’s just across the street," he whispered, nose rubbing behind Will’s ear. The gelled hair tickled a little, and Benji couldn’t help but smile. Despite the battering of the last few days, despite the secrets they’d had to keep, this was - they were - still good. It was the best comfort he could imagine. “Wanna go tomorrow? Before we call in?”  
  
“Yeah, Benji, ’ll go to t’Science Museum w’ you,” Will mumbled, not even opening his eyes. Benji grinned: he loved the whiny quality Will’s voice got when he was tired, or just waking up. It made him sound about twelve. Will’s arm came up, briefly putting him in a mock-headlock. “ _Tomorrow_. Now go the fuck to sleep, yeah?”     
  
“Yay,” Benji whispered flippantly, feeling like being ridiculous and loving that he _could_ be, here, with Will.  
  
Will’s body gave him a sleepy shove without dislodging him from his side. “Shut up, you doofus, ‘n go to sleep.”  
  
Lying in that bed together, smiling on the edge of sleep, Benji thought perhaps Will needn't be the only one feeling optimistic.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lykke Li's song "Tonight".
> 
> _Watch my back so I make sure,_  
>  _You're right behind me as before,_  
>  _Yesterday, the night before tomorrow,_  
>  _Dry my eyes so you won't know,_  
>  _Dry my eyes so I won't show,_  
>  _I know you're right behind me._  
>  _And don't you let me go, let me go, tonight._


End file.
